
Copernical Team
RIT astrophysicists collaborate on JWST survey yielding wide view of the early universe

Ten Earth Years Later On Mars Sols 3553-3554

Artemis 1 becomes cultural, educational time capsule for trip around moon

Additional Artemis I test objectives to provide added confidence in capabilities

ISS tests organisms, materials in space

3 in Blue Origin crew set new world records aboard New Shepard spaceflight

Blue Origin sends first Egyptian and Portuguese nationals to space

South Korea's first lunar orbiter launched by SpaceX

Beyond Artemis I—NASA plots cheaper rocket rollout while Congress calls for more flights

NASA has yet to get its next-generation moon rocket off the ground, but this week announced a shift in how it plans to pay for future launches while also falling under a new directive from Congress to increase the number of flights each year.
Artemis I, a combination of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, is set to roll out from Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building on Aug. 18 to Launch Pad 39-B ahead of a potential liftoff as early as Aug. 29. The uncrewed test flight will send Orion on a mission that could last up to 42 days traveling more than 1 million miles including several orbits around the moon.
The primary goal is to sign off on Orion's ability to support crew for future missions, including testing a heat shield that can endure the stresses of an intense re-entry.
"Orion will come home faster and hotter than any spacecraft has before," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson during a press conference Wednesday. "It's going to hit the Earth's atmosphere at 32 times the speed of sound.
Blue Origin sends first Egyptian and Portugese nationals to space

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin on Thursday launched six people to space, including the first from Egypt and Portugal, on the company's sixth crewed flight.
Mission "N-22" saw the New Shepard suborbital rocket blast off around 8:58 am local time (1358 GMT) from Blue's base in the west Texas desert.
The autonomous, re-usable vehicle sent its crew capsule soaring above the Karman line, the internationally recognized space boundary, 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level.
"I'm floating!" a crew mate could be heard saying on a livestream, as the capsule coasted to its highest point and the passengers experienced a few minutes of weightlessness.
Both the rocket and capsule separately returned to the base—the latter using giant parachutes—completing the mission around 11 minutes after lift-off.